Forgiveness is a powerful act. The quote above takes a humorous look at it, but truth be told, forgiveness is powerful. And that is way it is most likely a very hard thing to do, to forgive does not come easy for most. I know it does not for me.

But I have experienced it, and the power is overwhelming.If this is true, and it is, than why do we find it so hard to forgive?

the answer lies in our makeup, how we are created. We are created to survive. We will fight to save our lives and we will do what is necessary to advance our own personal worlds. Forgiveness flies in to the face of that. To forgive is to open yourself up to become vulnerable, if even for a split second. And all that we are fights against that sometimes till death.

It is easy to say the words “I forgive you” but difficult, at best, to truly mean them and to live them out. Often times we place conditions on forgiveness. We ask for something in return. This is not always wrong to do, but can lead to difficulties. The bible uses conditions when it comes to forgiveness:

Mat 6:12 (TEB) "Forgive us the wrongs that we have done, as we forgive the wrongs others have done us."

This is take from an online article in Time magazine…..

By EBEN HARRELL Eben Harrell – 29 mins ago

A professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Robert Feldman has spent most of his career studying the role deception plays in human relationships. His most recent book, The Liar in Your Life: How Lies Work and What They Tell Us About Ourselves, lays out in stark terms just how prevalent lying has become. He talked to TIME about why we all need a dose of honesty.

What are the main findings of your research?Not only do we lie frequently, but we lie without even thinking about it. People lie while they are getting acquainted at an average of three times in a 10-minute period. Participants in my studies actually are not aware that they are lying that much until they watch videos of their interactions.

One of the reasons people get away with so much lying, your research suggests, is that we are all essentially dupes. Why do we believe so many lies?This is what I call the liar’s advantage. We are not very good at detecting deception in other people. When we are trying to detect honesty, we look at the wrong kinds of nonverbal behaviors and we misinterpret them. The problem is that there is no direct correlation between someone’s nonverbal behavior and their honesty. "Shiftiness" could also be the result of being nervous, angry, distracted or sad. Even trained interrogators [aren’t] able to detect deception at [high] rates. You might as well flip a coin to determine if someone is being honest.

What’s more, a lot of the time we don’t want to detect lies in other people. We are unwilling to put forward the cognitive effort to suspect the veracity of statements, and we aren’t motivated to question people when they tell us things we want to hear. When we ask someone, "How are you doing?" and they say "fine," we really don’t want to know what their aches and pains are. So we take "fine" at face value. (Read a TIME story on ground rules for telling lies)

Do you feel deception is a particularly relevant topic to our society?We are living in a time and culture in which it’s easier to lie than it has been in the past. The message that pervades society is that it’s okay to lie; you can get away with it. One of the things I found in my research is that when you confront people with their lies they very rarely display remorse. Lying is not seen as being morally reprehensible in any strong way.

You can make the assumption that because it often makes social interactions go more smoothly, lying is okay. But there is a cost to even seemingly benign lies. If people are always telling you that you look terrific and you did a great job on that presentation, there’s no way to have an accurate understanding of yourself. Lies put a smudge on an interaction, and if it’s easy to lie to people in minor ways it becomes easier to lie in bigger ways.

You say in the book that recent DNA evidence suggests that 10% of people have fathers other than the men they believe conceived them. So is lying pretty widespread in our intimate lives, too?Research shows we lie less to people that we are close to. But when we do, they tend to be the bigger types of lies. And the fallout is greater if the deception is discovered.

You show how lying is a social skill. Does that mean it’s part of an evolutionary legacy?I don’t think lying is genetically programmed. We learn to lie. We teach our kids to be effective liars by modeling deceitful behavior.

In your book you offer a way to cut back on lies. What’s the "AHA! Remedy?"AHA! stands for active honesty assessment. We need to be aware of the possibility that people are lying to us, and we need to demand honesty in other people. Otherwise we will get a canned affirmation. At the same time, we have to demand honesty of ourselves. We have to be the kind of people who don’t tell white lies. We don’t have to be cruel and totally blunt, but we have to convey information honestly. The paradox here is that if you are 100% honest and blunt, you will not be a popular person. Honesty is the best policy. But it’s not a perfect policy.

I haven’t posted much as of late, it’s been kind of crazy for me, with TONS of stuff to do prior to July 1, but soon, very soon it should calm down for me. Launching a new company and product is very time consuming, but well worth it (I hope!). Setting up the web sites (www.staticplace.com) creating the marketing campaign and designing all the necessary documents, they all take time and effort. And with working a fulltime 9 to 5 type job, I don’t always have time to blog, nor time to do much of anything else.

But I always find “me” time, I always find time to relax and unwind. Yesterday was such a day for me, after work I went home and didn’t take my laptop out all night, I read, watched a little TV and didn’t even think about all the work I still have to do… But today, well most likely a little bit like yesterday. I am to the point were my mind needs to stop thinking about all that I have to do, and I need to rest it up, just a day or 2 and than back to the grind.

I still need to create samples of the program, and finish the websites and place ads in papers and find a sales person or 2 and and and… The list seems to keep adding to itself, seems like every time I think I am done, a new action item is added to the list, but that’s OK, because I know that in the long run it will all be worth the effort. So for today and the next few days I will work work work….

So I just wanted to catch you up a bit on what is going on with me, until next time, make sure you always have a little “ME” time in your week, it’s important to your health, both mentally and physically. I have written on that before, and maybe I will write a little more about it next time…

Time for your self is important, each of us need to set aside a little time each day for ourselves. Now I can hear some people already says, sure maybe you have time to set aside, but me, I’m so busy that I barley have time to sleep, with work and the kids and this event and that even….

and so it goes….

Well I say bull crap to that!

No one, and I mean no one is that busy that they can not find 5, 10 or 15 minutes each day for themselves, I am sure President Obama does, and you can not tell me you have more stuff on your plate than the leader of the free world does.

I am sure he has time for his wife and kids and for himself. If he can find the time, so can we. It’s called time management, and its a skill we all need to learn. And it is one we can discipline ourselves in, if we truly try.

As proof to my point, the young man that lives with me, my nephew, he use to spend all his time after school doing nothing but homework. He would come home, sit down and start on his homework, stop for dinner than study until 10 or 11 at night, and sometimes wake up a 5am to study more. He did ok in his classes, but nothing great. I was on him for over a year to stop this madness and go out with friends, hang out and play a little , to take time for his mind to rest and time for himself.

This past semester I forced him to do so, I refused to allow him to come home a study, he had to go and do something else with his friends and than after dinner do his homework. He got his best report card to date! He has learned a lesson for life, that time for himself is invaluable. His comment to me after getting his report card was, “I guess to much studying is not to smart”.

No truer statement can be made, and you can replace the wordy studying with any other word you like:

I guess to much overtime is not to smart

I guess to much helping others is not to smart

I guess to much volunteering is not to smart

I guess to much ________ is not to smart

We all can find the time, it’s not a matter of needing more hours in the day, its a matter of using the hours we got smartly. If my 17 year old nephew can figure it our, we should be able to also.

Sit down and write out your typical day, hour by hour, see where your time is going, and discover how you can re order your day or remove from your day to gain 10, 15 or 20 minuets to give to yourself.

Life can seem somewhat hectic at times. It seems that life can out run you, even when you think it’s all under control. I call that “Life Happening” not a new concept, I am sure most of you say that all the time “Life Happens”. It’s our way of saying that things come up, deal with it, move on and start another adventure.

Well life just happened again, I am off on a trip for two weeks for work, Koln Germany and Pone India. It should be an adventure, but truly the timing is bad. Seems to always work out that way, but as I say “Life Happens!”

It’s how we choose to deal with it all. Not only is the timing bad for this trip, the planning of it was a mess. I truly didn’t know when my flight was to leave until 11am New Years eve. Talk about waiting until the last minute! I had plans to make and people to inform and things to do. But “Life Happens” and I dealt with it the best I could.

“Life Happens” is a life lesson we keep learning over and over again. Once we think we have life where we want it, BAM “Life Happens” all over again. Now I could let this upset my life, I could turn it in to a major crisis, or I could just deal with it. I choose the latter of the two, I chose to just deal with it. I understand that really it’s no one’s fault that it took so long to get all the details worked out; I mean it was the Holiday season and all. People have time off, and things shut down. I understand the need for my company to look for the lowest fare possible, but man that can really make things difficult when dealing with another country. What they see as the lowest fair may not be what our travel agent sees. But such is life.

Today I leave for 2 weeks of “Life Happening”, in truth I am not sure what to expect when I arrive in Koln, I have a basic idea, but as always “Life Happens” and the best laid plans change. As for India, with all the news stories about violence, I am not too sure what to expect, but that’s life. I will make the best of it all and do what I need to do to return home safe and sound. As long as “Life Don’t Happen” … But I know it will, it always does.

Remember to take time for you. In this crazy world we often forget to take time for ourselves. With all the running around we do, taking the kids here, picking this up and dropping that off, we somehow forget that we too need time to relax and refuel.

I don’t mean just food for refueling, but also our minds and souls. We need to stop and take a little “Me Time”.

Me Time, a time to spend with self, a time to talk to self and refuel self, Read a book, drink a glass of wine, drink a cup of tea do something that allows you to spend time with you. Now I can hear everyone already, I don’t have the time to spend with myself, I a mother on the run, or a father on the run, when do I have time for me?

Well hear me now, listen up…. If you don’t find the time for self, you will run out of time. It is a proven fact, that each and every one of us need time for self, we need that quiet prayer time, to meditation time, to calm our minds and souls, 5, 20 or 15 minutes a day, every day. And if you’re telling me that you cannot find that little bit of time in your day, then you truly need professional help, because in a few short years you will be dead. Make the time, find the time and use the time.

Do some research, look it up on the web, ask your doctor, don’t take my word for it… You need to find the time for self. You need to find time to let your mind go, time to fill your soul with peace. Five minutes every day, once a day or many times throughout the day, your body knows what it needs, listen to it!

On that note, I think I will take my time now… I truth writing this blog and my other blog is all part of my time. It allows me to mind dump all the ideas in my head, allows me to meditate on them and flush them out. This is not work, this is self time.

My partner and I had a meeting yesterday with a local priest; we are trying to put together a conference for the spring of 09 for 6th 7th and 8th graders. We would like to schedule the conformance for the spring of 09, and we want this priest to be our keynote speaker, and to host the event at his parish. The meeting was short and sweet, in and out in less than a ½ hour, my kind of meeting.

I would see Jesus has having a short meeting, get to the point, discuses the business at hand, and call it good. Time is important, and to waste it seems silly to me. And sitting in a meeting talking about your kids or how your dog is doing is a waste, save it for after the meeting. If you really want that other person to know about your kids or dog, invite them out for a drink, and then talk it up all you want.

I am not really in to “Social” meetings… You know what I’m talking about, meeting that are set up to also be social events. They take more time and really serve no purpose. Sure you may chit chat about the family, but if I want to do that I would do it before or after the meeting. Once again time is of great value, and to ask more of it for no real value seems silly to me.

Please note, this is my opinion, not in any way do I state it as a fact. I know that many people like and even prefer “social” meetings. But I do not. I would rather you call it what it is; it’s more a networking opportunity, with in your group or organization. In truth less gets accomplished because the “social” aspect takes over, and in some cases that is fine, that’s what is needed or wanted, but once again call it what it is, a social event or a networking event.

I have attended many networking events, and they are okay, for what they are. Some people love them, I am not one of the “lovers” of networking events, but I do see and understand the value of them. They are not meetings, nor do they pretend to be one.

Back to the meeting my partner and I had yesterday, it was good, short and to the point, as I have already stated. Father asked very few questions but gave very direct responses to our request. We didn’t get any yes I will’s on No I won’ts but we did get direct responses of who to contact and what needs to happen. We event laughed and had a moment of pleasant conversation. It was a perfect meeting.

In this day and age of planners and scheduling “Play Dates” (God how I hate that term), it seems people want to use the time allotted for meetings as a “social event” a time to chit chat and make new friends. Meetings are not, nor should they be, used as anyone’s personal tea party or social network site. Meetings have agendas and task that must be covered. They should be covered and the meeting should end. Everyone appreciates a meeting ending prior to the scheduled time, or at least everyone should.

Time is of great value, we have only 24 hours in a day and each hour is irreplaceable, meetings are just that, meetings, they are not “Social” events, nor should they be.